After moving slowly downward for the better part of four decades, central bank gold holdings have risen since the Global Financial Crisis. We identify 14 “active diversifiers,” defined as countries that purchased gold and raised its share in total reserves by at least 5 percentage points over the last two decades. In contrast to the diversification of foreign currency reserves, which has been undertaken by advanced and developing country central banks alike, active diversifiers into gold are exclusively emerging markets. We document two sets of factors contributing to this trend. First, gold appeals to central bank reserve managers as a safe haven in periods of economic, financial and geopolitical volatility, when the return on alternative financial assets is low. Second, the imposition of financial sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and Japan, the main reserve-issuing economies, is associated with an increase in the share of central bank reserves held in the form of gold. There is some evidence that multilateral sanctions imposed by these, and other countries have a larger impact than unilateral sanctions on the share of reserves held in gold, since the latter leave scope for shifting reserves into the currencies of other non-sanctioning countries.

In this paper we analyze the changing role of gold in the international monetary system, in particular the persistence of gold holdings by monetary authorities for 20 years following the breakdown of the Brettone Woods system system and the Second Amendment to the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund which severed the formal link to gold. We stress four points. First, the gold-exchange standard was a recent arrangement that emerged only around 1900 in response to a set of historically-specific factors which also help to account for it smooth operation. How long those factors would have continued to support it will never be known, due to a great war and then a great depression. Second, a system which relied on inelastically supplied precious metal and elastcially suppled foreign exchange to meet the the world economy's demand for reserves was intrinsically fragile, prone to confidence problems, and a transmission belt for policy mistakes. Third, network externalities, statutory restrictions and habit all contributed to the persistence of the practice of holding gold reserves. But the hold of even factors as powerful as these inevitably weakens with time and the effects of their erosion are reinforced by the rise of international capital mobility, which increases the ease of holding other forms of reserves, both unborrowed and borrowed, and by the shift to greater exchange-rate flexibility, which according to our results diminishes the demand for reserves in general. Fourth and finally, network externalities, in conjunction with central bankers' collective sense of responsibility for the stability of the price of what remains an important reserve asset, suggest that the same factors which have long held in place the practice of holding gold reserves, when they come unstuck, may become unstuck all at once.

Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944–1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves, following rules of the pre-WWII gold standard. The longer an institution spent in the gold standard (and the older the policymakers), the stronger the correlation between gold reserves and currency. Since dollars and gold were not perfect substitutes, the Bretton Woods system never worked as expected. Even after radical institutional change, history still shapes the decisions of policymakers.

Most central banks oblige depository institutions to hold minimum reserves against their liabilities, predominantly in the form of balances at the central bank. The role of these reserve requirements has evolved significantly over time. The overlay of changing purposes and practices has the result that it is not always fully clear what the current purpose of reserve requirements is, and this necessarily complicates thinking about how a reserve regime should be structured. This paper describes three main purposes for reserve requirements - prudential, monetary control and liquidity management - and suggests best practice for the structure of a reserves regime. Finally, the paper illustrates current practices using a 2010 IMF survey of 121 central banks.

"To assess what contribution, if any, gold could make to the current international monetary system in the wake of the global financial crisis, Chatham House set up a global Taskforce of experts in 2011. The Taskforce explored the advantages and disadvantages of reintroducing gold in the system and identified a number of possible scenarios for reform. For gold to play a more formal role in the international monetary system, it would be imperative that it neither hinders the system's performance nor creates unacceptable constraints on national economic policies; Although the discipline a gold standard imposes on monetary policy may have been helpful in limiting the reckless banking and excessive debt accumulation of the past decade, the rigidity of a fixed price for gold would likely have been a serious handicap with the onset of the financial crisis when a much more flexible monetary response was required; There is no clear-cut role for gold as a policy indicator. The historical behaviour of the gold price does not provide a particularly good indicator for either monetary or fiscal policy. In fact, since the financial crisis, the rise in the gold price has indicated the need for tighter policies which, if implemented, could have been deeply damaging; Gold can serve as a hedge against declining values of key fiat currencies, and can also be useful for central banks, but its role as a hedge is not cost free. Indeed, a major downside of holding gold is that its price can be extremely volatile. Also, it generates no yield, other than capital gains which are only realised when it is sold. Gold, therefore, can form part of a portfolio of assets that spreads valuation risk, but on the other hand, it is not very effective as a sole reserve asset."--Publisher description.

This volume provides an analysis of the global monetary system and proposes a comprehensive yet evolutionary reform of the system aimed at creating better monetary cooperation for the twenty-first century.

Argues that the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression occurred as a result of poor decisions on the part of four central bankers who jointly attempted to reconstruct international finance by reinstating the gold standard.